Poinsettia Predicament
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EmailWe were able to sell most of our holiday poinsettias.
Unbeknownst to many of the holiday plant buying public, a greenhouse poinsettia crop is started in late July. That is when we receive the small, barely rooted cuttings from a wholesale production greenhouse. And to order those, decisions must be made in early March. Well we all know what happened in mid-March. COVID! SHUTDOWN! Poinsettias don’t get covid, so they arrived in late July very happy and content. But, no one had any idea what was to happen with fall classes and/or our holiday events and sales in December. So we potted up only enough of the poinsettia plugs to fill one greenhouse. Usually, we will fill close to three greenhouses. The poinsettias grew, and were happy and content. Then in September the realization was made that we would not be having any of our holiday events where we give away poinsettias to garden members and volunteers.
What to do with the happy and content poinsettias? They were starting to look like one of the best crops we ever grew. And no one to give to, or means to sell them easily. That’s about when, out of the blue, we were contacted by someone from MSU Surplus and Recycling. And he wrote in an email “it might be an interesting idea to combine forces to create a special holiday shopping experience for folks.” Hurrah, the points might have homes. And that’s what happened. They had the mechanism in place for online shopping, took orders, picked the poinsettias from us, and the public picked up curbside from there. So instead of composting an entire greenhouse of poinsettias, we sold (and gave away to different groups on campus) almost all of them.
